All posts tagged: Ron English

BSA Film Friday: 07.01.16

July 1, 2016 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :

1. Chump for Trump. Ron English x The Sutcliffes
2. 100 Persianas by MVIN
3. Street Heroines by Alexandra Henry
4. Der Hampelmann – Naive Street Art in Berlin from Erik & Nils Petter

BSA Special Feature: Chump for Trump. Ron English x The Sutcliffes

Seeing the new Ron English mural of Donald Trump in Bushwick, Brooklyn last week we were reminded of the video he released in April with a soundtrack by The Sutcliffes, a Beatles tribute band. It uses footage from Trump rallies and commercials interspersed with illustration and animation in an approachable folky way. Once you go down the rabbit hole of Trump satire and parody videos that have been made in the last year, you’ll find enough to begin a film festival.

Ron English brings Donald Trump as Humpty Dumpty on a wall – in collaboration with The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

100 Persianas by MVIN

A few months ago eL Seed created a multi building mural in Cairo that can only be seen in toto from a specific physical vantage point. Here is a similar project where the only way to appreciate a tag in Barcelona from MVIN is to assemble a grid of photos from 100 pull-down gates (persianas) he painted.

Check out the Instagram account that documents the progress here.

Street Heroines by Alexandra Henry

BSA has supported many great Kickstarters and this is one that we are truly excited about. Of course we’ve brought you work from many of the women whom Ms. Henry is including in this documentary, but there are faces we haven’t seen before and people whose stories haven’t been told.

She’s almost done filming but the project needs your help and we urge you to help get her over the finish line!

Please click on the link to help Alexandra Henry complete her project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/274344236/street-heroines

Der Hampelmann – Naive Street Art in Berlin from Erik & Nils Petter

Okay, we try to stay away from “cute”. This is a rare exception because it is interactive art on the street and it hearkens back to simple methods of entertaining children and, um, its so damn cute.

BSA Images Of The Week 06.19.16

June 19, 2016 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

No we’re not worried about Donald Trump falling from grace, as in the new piece by Ron English leading the show this week. That’s not the point, people. It’s that we have fallen so far that a guy like this can get so close to the White House.

By the way, Nychos is killing it in New York right now. Pieces in Coney Island, Bushwick, a truck side, a Freud sculpture at the Flat Iron, a new show at Jonathan Levine this week, a couple other walls planned including one at MANA. He’s very impressive in technique and work ethic. A shout out to the fellas who are capturing the action at Chop’em Down films. Top notch!

Meanwhile, we have a LOT of summer to enjoy. Get going!!!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring 18ism, AskewOne, Balu, CDRE, Dabs & Myla, GIZ, KAS, City Kitty, Myth, Nekst, Nychos, OG23, Rime MSK, Ron English, and Vik.

Our top image: Ron English brings Donald Trump as Humpty Dumpty on a wall – in collaboration with The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Giz and Bart kick it with the Smurf next door for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dabs & Myla for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Vik for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RIME MSK for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OG23 for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

18ism for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Indelible Funk for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AskewOne. Nekst tribute for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos “Translucent Heart Attack” for The Bushwick Collective and Mana Urban Art Projects. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nychos. Dissection Of Sigmund Freud Flatiron Plaza. NYC. Vienna Therapy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kitty City with Balu (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CDRE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kas. Brussels, Belgium. June 2016. (photo © KAS)

Untitled. Manhattan. June 2016. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artists Bring 22 New Murals to “Coney Art Walls 2016”

June 15, 2016 Artists

Just in time for this weekend’s Mermaid Parade, London’s D*Face is finishing up “Live Fast Die Young,” his beauty-and-the-zombie comic couple sipping an ice cream float at the soda counter. Austrian surrealist slicer Nychos has completed his dissection of a Ronald McDonald-ish character without a sketch; running, jumping, nearly flying through the air with aerosol in hand, flinging the spent cans over his shoulder blindly to skitter across the pavement. Baltimore-based freeform anthropologist Gaia is cavorting with passersby who want to take cellphone selfies in front of his painted wall that depicts exactly that; selfies taken in Coney Island.

This is a modern version of the multi-mirror funhouse in mural form, and Coney Art Walls is bringing it again.

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

22 new murals on standing slabs of concrete join a dozen or so that were retained from last summer to present an eclectic and savory selection from the old-school and the new. When it comes to art in the streets, a salty luncheonette of city-style treats is on a large public platter these days, with names like graffiti, street art, urban art, installation art, public art, fine art, even contemporary art. For some of those hapless gatekeepers of any of these respective categories, this show in this location presents degrees of discomfort and anger as many subcultural roots are now brought into the light in tandem with one another in a public display – funded by a real estate firm. For the artists and majority of fans, however, the trend is more toward delight and gratitude.

Nychos. The London Police photo bomb. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

While you are unpacking that, consider that lead curator Jeffrey Deitch has often proved very adept at plumbing the aesthetic margins of our culture while rearranging and intermingling the parties, helping the viewer to appreciate their differences. This outdoor exhibit co-curated with Joseph Sitt provides a venue for a wide audience to contemplate the range of expression that New York streets have had over the last few decades, including a few artists who are trying this manner of expression for the first time.

As the Thunderbolt, Steeplechase, Cyclone and Wonder Wheel spin and swerve nearby and overhead, sending screams and personal projectiles into the ocean breeze, you have this paved lot full of paintings to peruse, lemonade in one hand and the cotton-candy-sticky hand of a sunscreen-slathered child in the other. Here you’ll see a large two-walled corner smashed with Coney Island themes by Bronx graffiti masters Tats Cru (Bio, BG183, and Nicer), a selection of hand-drawn wheat pasted portraits of Coney Island youth by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and 4 full-form sculptures by John Ahearn creating a modernist view of divers on the beach .

Nychos. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tooling elsewhere through the loose labyrinth you come upon a monochromatic cryptically patterned tribute to Brooklyn-born Beastie Boys vocalist Adam “MCA” Yauch by Brooklyn tagger/train writer/artist Haze and a seemingly lighthearted abstractly collaged wall of mermaids by fine artist Nina Chanel Abney, whose work is currently on the cover of Juxtapoz. There is also a spectacular underwater-themed symmetrical fantasy topped by pylons bearing the likenesses of characters from “The Warriors” film by artist duo The London Police, and a stenciled “Last Supper” featuring heads of world currency playing the disciples and George Washington as Jesus sprayed across the face of a huge dollar bill by Iranian brothers Icy & Sot.

Pose. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We often travel streets and neglected spaces in cities looking for signs of freewill artistic expression and often the creative spirit surprises us as it can be expressed in so many ways with emotion, agenda, and idiosyncratic point of view. It may be the plurality of voices one experiences surfing the Internet or the multi-cultural nature of living in New York with a continuous river of fresh arrivals mixing in with established and old-timers every day, but one comes to expect this variety of viewpoints and rather naturally creates accommodation for inclusion that celebrates without negating – and in many ways Coney Art Walls does that as well.

Oppositional viewpoints are present if you look: There are coded messages and obvious ones, critiques of corporate hegemony, issues of race, commentary on police relations, sexuality, religion, capitalism, community, the languages of advertising, movies, music, entertainment, local history, and examination of roles and power structures.

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When tooling around this collection, you may wonder what, then, are the commonalities of this survey. Certainly there are the recurring references to Coney Island lore and aspects of performance and flimflam, oddity, fantasy, even the erotic. Naturally, there are elements of natural wonder as well, perhaps expected with the proximity to the beach and the ocean and the history of this place as a vacation getaway.

Aside from this, the connective tissue is what we frequently identify as what is distinctly New York – the plurality of voices. Arguing, making fun, praising, preening, bragging, lambasting, mocking, singing. Despite the continuous attempts by others to divide us, we’re strangely (very strangely), beautifully united.

Jeffery Deitch with John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

John Ahearn. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Icy & Sot. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“11 Instagram Posts”, by Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gaia. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Haze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

D*Face. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts has multi-generational roots here and her work makes you stop and study it. She has painted many visions and views around the neighborhood, and is considered the artist-in-residence. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Marie Roberts. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The London Police. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AIKO. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AIKO. Side A. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Originally from Japan, Brooklyn’s AIKO has a double sided stencil sonnet to the romance of the sea. With “Tale of the Dragon King and Mermaids in Water Castle” Aiko tells a new version of Urashima Tarō, an old Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to Ryūgū-jō, the palace of Ryūjin. Says Aiko, “This piece speaks to my and all women’s fantasies; chilling hard super sexy in the beautiful ocean with friendly dragon who is super powerful and a smart guy – they are about going to water castle having good time.”

AIKO. Side B. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daze. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nina Chanel Abney. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mister Cartoon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Steve ESPO Powers. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jessica Diamond. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tristan Eaton. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh photographing her subjects. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tatiana Fazlalizadeh. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Crash. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BIO – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

NICER – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BG183 – Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tats Crew. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sam Vernon. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Timothy Curtis. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper. Coney Art Walls – 2016 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Coney Art Walls
2016 New Artists: Nina Chanel Abney, John Ahearn, Timothy Curtis, D*Face, Jessica Diamond, Tristan Eaton, Gaia, Eric Haze, Icy & Sot, London Police, Nychos, Pose, Stephen Powers, Tats Cru, and Sam Vernon. Returning artists who created new works: Lady Aiko, Mister Cartoon, Crash, Daze, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, and Marie Roberts. 2015 Murals on display: by Buff Monster, Eine, Ron English, How & Nosm, IRAK, Kashink, Lady Pink, Miss Van, RETNA, eL Seed and Sheryo & Yok. There are also three community walls.

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

“The Art Of The Mural: Volume 01” Captures a Moment

May 10, 2016 Artists

Murals hold their own place onstage in public space today for a variety of reasons that we discuss regularly on BSA. From grassroots and public, to private and corporate, we have watched the genre professionalize as Street Art festivals and other initiatives are often coupling artists with brands and are selling canvasses through the organizers galleries. Today we have the first of a promised four-part book series by Art Whino gallerist and organizer of the Richmond Mural Project in Virginia, Shane Pomajambo, that features many artists he has worked with in the brand new “The Art of the Mural”.

Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Featuring more than fifty current graffiti/Street Artists, the survey pays special attention to the show-stopping eye candy that commands attention for these nomadic painters who are developing their craft before an ever larger and more appreciative international audience.

Culture critic and curator Carlo McCormick, who writes the introduction to the Schiffer published hardcover, notes that this mural renaissance is quite unlike the US government funded New Deal era mural programs that produced “hundreds of thousands of murals for schools, hospitals, post offices, housing projects, and various government facilities”. And he’s right, these are emanating from a different place entirely.

Antony Lister. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

The world-traveling media-soaked artists, of which this collection is subset, have had vastly more exposure to corporations and branding perhaps than, say, arts institutions, and a sophisticated self-handling is often on display with artists ever more savvy in their choices of style and content.

A greater percentage are now entering into private collections, galleries, and museums thanks to unprecedented platforms for huge exposure on the Internet, and their public works are adding rich character and dialogue to our neighborhoods and public spaces.

Curiot. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

With academia, art critics, and auction houses all grappling with the rightful place of these artists in contemporary art and society at large it will be instructive to know the history and their lineage, content, context, and patronage. One has to agree when McCormick says that all of these “are helpful for us to consider in looking at and understanding the artists’ walls of today.”

This collection of talent is strong, with many of the mid-large names that are at play in this generation of painters whom are primarily born in the 1970s and 80s. In their work is a cultural appreciation for modern graffiti history as they now channel it along with formal training, art history, advertising, and a multitude of media. With few exceptions, it’s a tight list of artists, the images are riveting (though uncredited to their photographers), and the brief introductions by Pomajambo contain just enough biographical information and artist’ quotes to ground the story and give it context.

“As with everything I do,” says the Queens, New York native Pomajambo, “I always question and observe, and as we reach critical mass with murals I felt compelled to create this project and capture a moment in time.”

Evoca 1. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Fintan Magee. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Miss Van. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

MOMO. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Onur & Wes 21. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Telmo & Miel. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Tone (Robert Proch). Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

All photos of the spreads by Jaime Rojo

The Art of The Mural: Contemporary International Urban Art. Volume 01 by Shaen Pomajambo. Schiffer Publishing. Atglen, PA. USA.

Participating Artists
Amose, Arraiano, Augustine Kofie, Axel Void, Bezt (Etam Crew), Chazme 718, Chor boogie, Clog Two, Curiot, Cyrcle, DALeast, Decertor, Dface, ETNIK, Faith47, Fintan Magee, Hense, INTI, Jade, Jaz, JR, Kenor, Lister, Logan Hicks, Low Bros, Meggs, Miss Van, Momo, Mr Thoms, Muro, Natalia Rak, Nosego, Onur, Pener, Reka, Robert “Tone” Proch,Ron English, Rone, Sainer (Etam Crew), SATONE, SEACREATIVE, Sepe, Smithone, Sten Lex, Stormie Mills, Telmo Miel, Tristan Eaton, TWOONE HIROYASU, Vhils, Wes21 and Zed 1

BSA Galavanting, The New Year and You

January 2, 2016 Artists

BSA galavanted through the streets last year and here we re-paste our recent newsletter to BSA readers. Sign up for it if you like. Here’s the original.

Happy New Year from BSA!

From Berlin to Norway to Rochester and Mexico, Faile to Swoon to Ron English to Dan Witz and Gilf!, BSA was in museums, galleries, artists studios, at festivals, on panel discussions, on stages, on TV, radio, in theaters, and of course in the street.

Here are some highlights of the some of the amazing things BSA did with you in 2015. We sincerely thank you for your support and send love to you and yours in the new year!

In ’15 BSA Created “Persons of Interest” with UN in Berlin
Brought 12 Brooklyn Street Artists to Berlin with “Persons of Interest” show for Urban Nation Museum (UN)/ProjectM7

Reviews in:
Juxtapoz, VNA, Hi-Fructose, Huffington Post, Butterfly

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The (almost) complete “Persons of Interest” crew courtesy ©Sandra Butterfly

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BSA Presented “On the Radar” in Coney Island
With Jeffrey Dietch’s Coney Art Walls program at Coney Island Museum for Coney Art Walls, we presented 12 artist to watch who are on our radar.

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BSA Presented Faile at the Brooklyn Museum
A beautiful experience to be a part of the FAILE exhibition from its earliest planning stages to its full summer run at Brooklyn Museum, the cherry on top was to host an in-depth presentation and conversation with Faile’s Patrick Miller and Patrick McNeil and BKM curator Sharon Matt Atkins in front of an enthusiastic Brooklyn audience.

Aside from The Pope landing in New York at the exact time people were traveling to the show and some microphone difficulties at the beginning of the show, it was a complete and total thrill for us. See the full video on LiveStream here.

What Happened with BSA + FAILE at the Brooklyn Museum?

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Steven P. Harrington, Patrick Miller of Faile (top), Sharon Matt Atkins, Patrick McNeil, and Jaime Rojo (image © by and courtesy of The Dusty Rebel) (@DustyRebel on Instagram)

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BSA Joined Swoon to Inaugurate Her New Heliotrope Foundation
The tenacious and visionary Street Artist grounded her dreams in a formal foundation in 2015, allowing her to pursue even greater reach in her growing projects in New Orleans, Haiti, and Braddock, PA. We were honored to interview her and to help celebrate the official beginning of The Heliotrope Foundation with the help of special guest and board member Kaseem Dean aka Swizz Beatz.

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Callie Curry (aka Swoon), Kasseem Dean (aka Swizz Beatz), Jaime Rojo, Steven P. Harrington inaugurate The Heliotrope Foundation

photo ©Daniel Feral

BSA Hosted Martha Cooper, Bortusk Leer, and Herman De Hoop at Nuart Plus
For presentations from each of the guests and panel discussion on the intersection of “Play” and public space at NUART 2015 in Stavanger, Norway.

Read our published essay for the academic conference at Nuart: “TECHNOLOGY, FESTIVALS AND MURALS AS NUART TURNS 15“

NUART 2015 Roundup: A Laboratory on the Street

Jaime Rojo, Harmen De Hoop, Martha Cooper, Bortusk Leer, Steven P. Harrington at Nuart Plus (©MZM Projects)

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Banksy Does New York Took Us to Theaters Around the World
Good News: The movie got on NetFlix, iTunes, in festivals, and in theaters in cities around the globe
Bad News: People think we have a museum

We Flew Over World’s Largest Mural
Flew by helicopter above the world’s largest mural by Ella and Pitr in Stavanger, Norway with two of our most admired photographers; Martha Cooper and Ian Cox. Thanks Nuart!

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Ella & Pitr © Jaime Rojo

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Ian Cox, Martha Cooper, Jaime Rojo getting ready to fly over Ella & Pitr in Norway (photo selfie ©Ian Cox)

We presented BSA Film Friday Live at MAG Gallery
Under the direction of Jonathan Binstock at University of Rochester Museum the MAG Gallery hosted us during the Wall\Therapy festival.

This is the grassroots sort of festival that rings true to us these days and the down-to-earth volunteers and organizers of this event, along with those of our associates at Urban Nation (UN), made this a highlight of the summer.

WALL\THERAPY 2015 : Surrealism and The Fantastic

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Steven P. Harrington at MAG Gallery for Wall\Therapy (photo ©Jason Wilder)

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BSA moderated 1st panel for 1st event of 1st edition of LoMan Festival
“OMG Is this Street Art?” was the name of our panel with guest panelists Ron English, Gilf!, Dan Witz, and Jonathan Levine.

LoMan Art Festival Launches Its First Blast in NYC

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Ron English, Ann J Lewis, Dan Witz, Jonathan LeVine, and Steven P. Harrington for first LoMan festival event in August (photo ©Rodrigo Valles‎).

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BSA in Berlin Radio Interview with Vantage Point
We talked about Jay-Z, Bowie, Bushwick, the democratization of Street Art, cultural imperialism, the UN and what it is like to bust out a blog seven days a week and still keep your mind and heart open to discovery.
Listen to it here on Vantage Point and Soundcloud:

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▪ BSA completed its fifth year in partnership with The Huffington Post in June 2015 (225+ articles) and was translated in Spanish on El Huffington Post, in French on Le Huffington Post, in Italian on L’Huffington Post, in Korean on Huff Post Korea, in Portuguese on Brasil Post, and in Greek for Huffington Post Greece.
▪ BSA posted every single day and did 23 interviews and studio visits and published articles about street art in 103 cities
▪ BSA was reference or appeared in the media in The New York Times, The Today Show, Le Monde, Agence France Press, German Rbb Tv, Borås Tidning, El Diario, El Heraldo, ArtNet News, Juxtapoz, VNA, Hi-Fructose, and others.
▪ BSA’s Director of Photography Jaime Rojo took more than 10,000 images and we picked 143 as BSA 2015 Images of the Year.

Special thank you to photographer Martha Cooper and Nuart Festival director Martyn Reed for the banner image from this years festival.

BSA “Images of the Year” for 2015 : New Video

December 16, 2015 Artists

Was 2015 the “Year of the Mural”?

A lot of people thought so, and the rise of commercial festivals and commissioned public/private mural programs probably brought more artists to more walls than in recent history. Judging from the In Box, 2016 is going to break more records. Enormous, polished, fully realized and presented, murals can hold a special role in a community and transform a neighborhood, even a city.

But they are not the “organic” Street Art that draws us into the dark in-between places in a city, or at its margins.

We keep our eyes open for the small, one-off, idiosyncratic, uncommissioned, weirdo work as well, as it can carry clues about the culture and reveal a sage or silly solo voice. It also just reinforces the feeling that the street is still home to an autonomous free-for-all of ideas and opinions and wandering passions. For us it is still fascinating to seek out and discover the one-of-a-kind small wheatpastes, stencils, sculptures, ad takeovers, collages, and aerosol sprayed pieces alongside the enormous and detailed paintings that take days to complete.

The main image above is from a vinyl subway advertisement that was high-jacked and we published it in February of this year on our Images of the Week posting. It’s small, personal, and very effective as you can see someone suspiciously similar to Batman is jumping out of the mouth of someone looking awfully similar to Hedwig of “Angry Inch” fame.

Of the 10,000 or so images photographer Jaime Rojo took in 2015, here are a selection 140+ of the best images from his travels through streets looking for unpermissioned and sanctioned art.

Brooklyn Street Art 2015 Images of the Year by Jaime Rojo

Brooklyn Street Art 2015 Images of the Year by Jaime Rojo includes the following artists;

365xlos43, Amanda Marie, Andreas Englund, Augustine Kofie, Bisser, Boijeot, Renauld, Bordaloli, Brittany, BunnyM, Case Maclaim, Casg, Cash4, CDRE, Clet, Cost, Curve, Dain, Dal East, Dan Budnik, Dan Witz, David Walker, DeeDee, Dennis McNett, Don Rimx, Ricardo Cabret, LNY, Alex Seel, Mata Ruda, Don’t Fret, Dot Dot Dot, ECB, El Mac, El Sol25, Ella & Pitr, Eric Simmons, Enest Zacharevic, Martha Cooper, Martin Whatson, Ever, Faile, Faith47, Findac, Futura, Gaia, Gilf!, Hanksy, Hellbent, Hot Tea, How & Nosm, Icy and Sot, Inti, Invader, Isaac Cordal, James Bullough, Janet Dickson, Jef Aerosol, Jilly Ballistic, Joe Iurato, John Fekner, Le Diamantaire, Li Hill, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Low Brow, Marina Capdevilla, Miss Van, Mr. Prvrt, Mr. Toll, Myth, Nafir, Nemos, Never Crew, Nick Walker, Nina Pandolofo, Old Broads, Oldy, Ollio, Os Gemeos, Owen Dippie, Paper Skaters, Pet Bird, Kashink, Smells, Cash4, PichiAvo, Pixel Pancho, QRST, ROA, Ron English, Rubin415, Saner, Sean 9 Lugo, Shai Dahan, Shepard Fairey, Sheryo & The Yok, Sinned, Sipros, Skewville, Slikor, Smells, Sweet Toof, Snowden, Edward Snowden, Andrew Tider, Jeff Greenspan, Specter, Stray Ones, Sweet Toof, Swil, Willow, Swoon, The Outings Project, Toney De Pew, Tristan Eaton, Various & Gould, Vermibus, Wane, Wk Interact

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.01.15

November 1, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

A stunning panoply of events all at once this Halloween weekend in New York – The Mets are in the “World Series” playing here and everybody is a fan, the New York City Marathon is today (oldest participant is nearly 95), and everybody’s clocks get set back an hour. More than your average number of freaks and weirdos have been on the subway and street and in bars and in your hallway, some asking for candy, and a lot of people decorated their haunted castles. Check out our Halloween Street Art posting from yesterday, Boo!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Bifido, Binho, Cdre, City Kitty, Crash, Crummy Gummy, Curve, Hunt, London Kaye, Oldy, Rae, Ron English, Solus, Specter, Tony DePew, and Zafuto.

Top image above >>> Crummy Gummy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Oldy (photo © Jaime Rojo)

London Kaye (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Twunny Twunny Twunny four hours a day…Crash and Solus’ tribute to Joey Ramone – across the street from the ghost of CBGBs. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Observe . Listen . Reveal. Pillars of the fourth estate. Ron English re-interprets the three wise monkeys for #NotACrimeCampaign (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

An all too familiar scene- not sure what to think of this one. Check out the cat in the lower corner. Bifido in Athens, Greece. (photo © Bifido)

Tony Depew (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The tags on the cab are a great balance to the CURVE (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Binho (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zafuto. Not sure if the tag was added later. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cdre takes on Chuck Berry. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RAE sitting on a wall like Humpty Dumpty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Specter billboard take over nearly levitates futuristically. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Could this be Tuco Wallach? This piece is very similar to his Manimal series. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hunt (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Brooklyn, NYC. October 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LoMan Art Festival Launches Its First Blast in NYC

August 12, 2015 Artists

In a Street Art story rich with irony, Lower Manhattan has just hosted its first official mural festival.

Space Invader (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

It’s not that the island has been bereft of murals of late – the Los Muros Hablan festival in Harlem has been through a couple of iterations way uptown, Brooklyn has the Bushwick Collective, and Queens has been hosting the Welling Court Project.

The irony lies in the fact that this Lower Manhattan Arts Festival (LoMan) is really the first codified effort to highlight the work of graffiti and Street Art creators in a section of NYC known from the 1970s-90s for the free-range street stylings of artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Al Diaz, Keith Haring, Dan Witz, Jenny Holzer, Richard Hambleton, John Fekner, WK Interact, REVS/Cost, and artist collectives like AVANT, among many others.

A major coup of sorts, LoMan exhibited the sculpture of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that mysteriously showed up in a New York park this spring by Andrew Tider and Jeff Greenspan (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

In other words, on this baked concrete slab of downtown New York that was once a creative cesspool and Petri dish for on-the-street experimentation calling upon all manner of art making, today’s newly arriving young artists have no dream of moving in. In fact, most have fled in search of affordable rent.

Now the entrepreneurial spirit of a couple of guys, Wayne Rada and Rey Rosa, is luring artists back into Lower Manhattan, if only to paint a mural and help the tourist trade in Little Italy. That is how the L.I.S.A. Project (Little Italy Street Art) began three years ago, bringing in about 40 artists – a list that includes big names and small with varying degrees of influence on the current scene.

Dain and Stikki Peaches (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Despite the historically inhospitable demeanor of hard-bitten and often bureaucratic old New York greeting him at many junctures, Rada has had some measured and great successes along the way, convincing local wall owners to give a mural a try and raising funding from local businesses and art fans to help artists go larger.

So LoMan Fest’s first edition has finished this year, and along with a few volunteers, a smattering of helpful partners, and nearly continuous negotiations with local building owners, art supply companies, cherry picker rentals, and a collection of local and international artists, Rada and Rosa have pulled off a new event. Impressively it included large murals, smaller street installations, a couple of panel discussions, some live music performances, outdoor film screenings, a sticker battle, a live painting battle, live podcasts, a graffiti zine table, and a sculpture garden in an emptied parking lot on Mulberry Street.

Damien Mitchell (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Struggle would be a good word. But like anything else when you are starting something for the first time you are spending a lot of time putting systems in place,” says Rada of the process. “There have been interesting challenges with the building owners and with the artists but when it is all said and done it has been all worth it.”

For a scene that was initiated by autonomous un-permissioned art-making on private property, the process of organizing graffiti and Street Artists to do approved pieces on legal walls may try the patience of the rebels who look on mural festivals as lacking ‘street cred’. But Rada sees it differently.

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh expands on her campaign with brand new portraits for “Stop Telling Women to Smile.” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

“You know there are people in this world that don’t appreciate this and I just want people to enjoy the pieces as long as they can. Isn’t the fun part of street art that moment when you turn the corner and discover it? That’s really what we are trying to do here. For me it’s a collaborative process of trying to find them a spot – which is also normally something bigger where they can take their time and really think it out. In turn, when that work is complete their existing fans enjoy it, and also it helps them get new fans.”

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

A final irony is that LoMan is joining a long list of Street Art-inspired mural festivals worldwide that you might have thought New York would have been near the front of.

Brooklyn Street Art: I imagine you’ve seen the rise of Street Art festivals and you’ve seen the character perhaps of specific festivals in different parts of the world. Do you think there is something specific about New York’s current Street Art scene that has a personality or specific voice?
Wayne Rada: First of all I studied every single festival out there from Pow! Wow! to Nuart, every single one. I’ve also had conversations with people who coordinate those festivals so that I could do a better job with this. I just feel like New York is, and this is grandiose to say, the nexus of the universe for the art world. It just seemed there was something missing and it made sense to have something here.”

Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Given the history and the populations of NYC, maybe the strength is the diversity of styles and international artists who are drawn to this particular city to drop a piece throughout the year on rooftops, under bridges, on abandoned lots and doorways. After a minute, Rada decides that this may be what makes a festival like this distinctly New York.

“So in the art world there are so many artists and there are so many Street Artists – and Lower Manhattan especially is represented by something like 126 different cultures and many different races and languages that make up downtown,” he says, “so it makes sense to try to be as diverse as possible and have as many of those voices represented as we could – men and women, all ages, and all walks of life.”

Here’s your first look at LoMan, but it won’t be your last. Rada and Rosa tell us they already have 2016 all planned.

Art Is Trash typically uses actual trash found on the street to create impromptu dioramas (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Art Is Trash (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ron English added a pink “Temper Tot” shortly before LoMan commenced. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nicolas Holiber uses found wood to create a new “Venus” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nicolas Holiber. “Mars” (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Hanksy (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sonni (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

The DRiF pimping a statue of David. (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

As in “The Lower East Side” by Russell Murphy (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faith47 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Buff Monster (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

BD White and JP Art (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Gilf! (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ori Carino (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

A new sculpture by Leon Reid IV (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tats Cru in monochrome (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

J Morello (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

At press time the works of ASVP, Beau Stanton, Crash, Solus and Ludo were either not completed or had just begun. We’ll bring you these pieces on a later article.

To learn more about the LoManArt Fest click HERE

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!
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This article is also published on The Huffington Post

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.02.15

August 2, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Did you see the blue moon over New York Friday night? Looked to be more crimson actually. Welcome to August and the hot sticky band of dirty grit that comes with it. Escape from New York if you can, even if it is just on a lawn chair in a park. NYC parks have a lot of free movies this summer and a huge array of free concerts all through the remainder of dog days. Naturally there is great deal of artful expression on the streets available on your way to and from the venue, very dramatic in its own way.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring $howta, 52, Brolga, BustArt, Esteban Del Valle, Dain, Dasic, Don Rimx, Droid, JR, Julien de Casablanca, KFA, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Ron English, Rubin415, Sokar Uno, and Willow.

Top image above >>> London Kaye. This is perhaps the artist’s largest piece and, as is the artist’s practice, it was made entirely with crocheted yarn. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JR. Migrants, Ibrahim, Mingora-Philadelphia. For Mural Arts Program “Open Source” Series. (photo Steve Weinik. Courtesy Mural Arts Program).

Coney Art Walls : 30 Reasons To Go To Coney Island This Summer

June 24, 2015 Artists

The gates are open to the new public/private art project called Coney Art Walls and today you can have a look at all 30 or so of the new pieces by a respectable range of artists spanning four decades and a helluva lot of New York street culture history. We’ve been lucky to see a lot of the action as it happened over the last five weeks and the range is impressive. These are not casual, incidental choices of players lacking serious resumes or street/gallery cred, but the average observer or unknowing critic may not recognize it.

By way of defining terms, none of this is street art. These are murals completed by artists who are street artists, graffiti writers, fine artists, and contemporary artists. In the middle of an amusement park, these are commissioned works that respond in some way to their environment by thirty or so local and international heavy hitters and a few new kids on the block comprising a 40+ year span of expertise.

Open to many strata of the public and fun-seekers who dig Brooklyn’s rich cultural landscape, this outdoor show will surely end up as backgrounds for selfies — while perhaps simultaneously elevating a discourse about the rightful place of graffiti/street art/urban art within the context of contemporary art. Okay, maybe not such loftiness will result, but let’s not rule it out entirely.

It should come as no surprise that it is the dealer, curator, perennially risk-taking showman Jeffrey Deitch who is the ringmaster of this circus, or that the genesis of this cultural adventure is perplexing to some who have greeted his newest vision with perplexity and derision. His Deitch Projects and related activities in the 2000s regularly presented and promoted the street-inspired D.I.Y. cultural landscape, having done his due diligence and recognizing that new life springs from the various youth movements always afoot. The Jeffrey-conceived “Art Parade” itself was a street-based all-inclusive annual panoply of eye candy and absurdity; inflicting humor, sex, gore, fire, glitter and possibility into the minds of Manhattan sidewalk observers.

As MOCA Los Angeles director Deitch also flipped the script with his “Art In The Streets,” organizing a vast survey of a half-century of the modern grassroots genres including graffiti/street art/urban art/tattoo/punk/hip-hop/skater culture that far surpassed anyone’s predictions for audience attendance and public engagement. Aside from tripping wires and a public misstep here and there, the show earned critical praise, pinched art-school noses, and pushed skeptical institutions and patrons to question their prejudices. It also gave voice to a lot of people.

Notably, that MOCA exhibit drew a little over 200,000 attendees in four months. Coney Island beach and boardwalk gets about 14 million annually. Even if the Smorgasbord pop-up village food trucks feed a fraction of that number, there will be more folks viewing art and interacting with it here than, say, the Four Seasons dining rooms, which also display street artists and contemporary artists in the restaurants’ artistic programming. Side by side comparisons of Smorgasbord/Four Seasons diners ethnic diversity, income, age, education level, museum board membership or real estate investments were not available at press time. But neither can be fairly described as exploitative to artists or audience without sounding patronizing.

These multicolored and monochromatic murals illustrate a wide and balanced smorgasborg of their own; examples of myriad styles are at play with some engaging in activism and local politics and Coney Island history. From original train writer Lady Pink to aerosol drone sprayer Katsu, from eL Seed’s lyrical Arabic calligraffiti to Retna’s secret text language to graffitist-now-collagist Greg Lamarche, from Shepard Fairey’s elegant Brooklyn salute to polluters and blasé consumerism to Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s spotlight on current Coney Island neighbors, from urban naturalist ROA’s monochrome marginalized city animals to How & Nosm’s eye-punching and precise graphic metaphors, you are getting a dizzying example of the deep command Deitch has of this multi-headed contemporary category that is yet to settle on a moniker to call itself.

Coney Art Walls assembles world travelers from NYC and LA and Miami and internationally; Belgium, Barcelona, Brazil, Paris, Tunisia, London. Some are 80s Downtown NYC alumni, others were train writers in the 70s or big crew graff heads and taggers from the decades after. Some are considered historical originators of a form and cross-genre risk takers pushing beyond their comfort zone. Take a close look and you’ll find names that are in major collections (private, institutional, corporate) and that go to auction.

Some are regularly showing in galleries and are invited to street art festivals, exhibited in museums and discussed in academia and print. Others have studio practices spanning three decades, are lecturers, panelists, authors, teachers, community advocates, art stars, reality TV personalities, film actors, product endorsers and art product makers working with global brands. One or two may be considered global brands themselves. A handful have been painting on the streets for 40 years. Monolithic they are not.

One more notable aspect occurred to us as we watched this parade making its peregrination to these summer walls – either because of Deitch or the romance or history of Coney or both; When you are looking at the range of ages and ethnicities and family configurations and listening to the variety of accents and opinions expressed and seeing the friendly but tough-stuff attitudes on display — you might guess you were in Brooklyn. You are.

Our previous weekly updates track the installation period of Coney Art Walls:

Coney Art Walls: First 3 Completed and Summer Begins

DEITCH Masters, Coney Art Walls Part 2 : Coney With a Twist

Eine, Hayuk: A Riot of Color at Coney (Update III)

Coney Art Walls: Gypsies, Stallions, Mermaids, and Pop Optics! Update IV

Coney Art Walls Opens for the Mermaids! Update V

This article is also published on The Huffington Post

Coney Art Walls: Gypsies, Stallions, Mermaids, and Pop Optics! Update IV

June 13, 2015 Artists

Coney Art Walls continues to take shape before your lying eyes, ladies and gentlemen, snake oil salesmen, and painted ladies in fishnet stockings. Watch now as our intrepid camera wielding high wire walker slithers upward into the sky for his shot!

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making.

~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti

In this amazing expanding collection you can see that the history and legacy of the location is clearly inspiring many of the artists who painted this week. From Miss Van’s “Gypsy With Stallions” to Aiko’s multi-ethnic mermaids to Jason Woodside’s clown-car of pop-optic patterning to Kenny Scharf’s amorphous fun-house characters, Buff Monster’s melty ice cream, and Ron English’s mutated funny/frightening grinning cartoon characters…this weeks additions are giving the place a cheerfully happy and vaguely creepy magic vibe.

One more week of this painting madness and many surprises are just behind this velvet curtain, Ladies and Germs.

Ron English and the “American Temper Tot” Pop Out In New York City

April 29, 2015 Artists

All American Temper Tot is the name of the new installation by Street Artist Ron English on the Houston Bowery Wall in Manhattan, and the US flag-based design may be comforting to the average patriotic New Yorker until you realize he is offering a not-so-subtle critique of mindless consumerism that indicts probably everyone who passes it. Part of his Popaganda series, a sort of retrospective of it actually, the famous subverter of billboards has just delivered a one-two punch to the culture of comfortable consumerism that reduces all life experiences to a commodity.

The enormous nose-tweak is more ironic perhaps on this island that has raised its rents so high that most artists have had to abandon it and little genuine Street Art actually is on its walls anymore. This particular high-profile spot has become revered not only because of its lineage of Street Artists (Haring, Scharf, Faile, Fairey, HowNosm, Swoon among others) but because greed and gentrification has effectively wiped out the sort of organic scene that gave it birth.

While some passersby will see references to Jasper Johns here we are reminded of another more grassroots politically satirical flag. As early as the 1990s we began to see anti-corporate protesters carrying flags with the stars replaced by corporate logos and those may be a closer analogue to the stripes on display here.

In the last decade and a half as media was consolidated into a fewer hands and tabloid TV began serving up absurdity as normality, everything from pesticides to wars to gas fracking became slickly commercialized products to brand and sell and artists like Ron English has been drawing attention and alerting the public to the mindless consumers that we are becoming via his postering and illegal billboard “takeovers”. With playful parody on fast food purveyors, sugary cereal sellers, and right wing news channels, these were more comedic satire like those you may find in MAD magazine than the pointed approach of early 1970s takeover artists like “The Billboard Liberation Front” or the full frontal lobe subvertising of folks like the Adbusters.

In one more twist to this new wall story, a few will undoubtedly argue that this installation is also a billboard advertisement itself since a print of the piece went on sale this week on the artists website, and it’s central figure, the Temper Tot, is also a 3-dimensional vinyl toy that is highly collectible. But not everyone is scandalized by this — the print already sold out. This is the soup we are all swimming in – even while the little green hulking monster baby flexes his muscles and trembles with fury at what has been happening to that flag behind him.

Like his site says in the sales copy for the toy “The only thing worse than a toddler with a tantrum is a very STRONG one!” Terrifyingly strong and terrifically immature, don’t get in the way of this well armed boy nearly popping off the wall and running across Houston Street to punch someone’s lights out. English has poked his finger in the chest of popaganda and we all will see how it responds.

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This article is also published on The Huffington Post.

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